Dreams
by AerinM
Summary: A series of ficlets/drabbles. Bracken keeps having dreams about this girl he's never met before. What could they mean? (Implied Brackendra.)
1. Chapter 1

_Veeeeery loosely based on a prompt I received from jesussavedevenme. Inspired by it. I may make this into another ficlet series and, if so, may work the actual prompt itself into the story somewhere. We'll see how this goes. (Thank you for the idea! I hope you like this!)_

* * *

Bracken woke up in a sudden way, his shoulders jerking to the side and his eyes flying open. He looked around wildly, his thoughts disoriented, trying to decipher what had happened and where he was.

Ah. Right.

_Prison._

His breathing gradually slowed down as he leaned back into his cot once more. He placed a hand over his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

That girl. He'd dreamt about that girl again.

He wasn't exactly sure when she'd first appeared in his dreams, but for whatever reason she'd been a reoccurring feature for the past several weeks at least. Often it was the same dream - she'd hold his hand and tell him to go back to sleep, then reassure him that she wasn't going anywhere. He would succumb to her words and calming emotions, and his dream would naturally shift to something he wouldn't remember upon waking up. But the image of her always stuck with him.

Occasionally she'd appear in a different scenario. When she did, he'd simply catch glimpses of moments - quick, passing ones - and he would catch random snippets of conversations which would blur together so badly that he often could only make out a word or two at a time. He'd seen her smiling in a beautiful garden surrounded by fairies. Witnessed her walking around with her brow furrowed, apparently worried about something. Watched her descend upon an unseen enemy with a blazing sword in her hand.

This time, she had been crying and was clearly in visible distress. She was at Wyrmroost of all places - he'd recognized Blackwell Keep in the background, the familiarity of which made this particular dream seem even more intense - and the only word he could make out was his own name being repeated over and over again with varying degrees of emotion and an overwhelming sense of sadness in accompaniment.

His arms had ached as he'd felt compelled to comfort her… but why?He didn't even know her name.

Who was she? And why had she been haunting his dreams? He was positive that he would have remembered meeting her in person. She was clearly fairykind from the aura which surrounded her in his dreams, and his mother hadn't selected a handmaiden in _centuries_. The previous fairykind human had been an older woman as well, with children of her own, and this girl was quite young.

No. He definitely hadn't met her before.

_Prophecy, perhaps?_

Bracken threw that thought out of the proverbial window. He had no horns and, even when he'd possessed all three, he'd never experienced prophetic dreams before. That was more his mother's area of expertise.

_Maybe a _new_ talent surfacing?_

Again, he pushed the idea aside. He had _no horns_. No one had ever heard of a hornless unicorn who was able to perform such intricate magic, especially subconsciously. It wasn't a possibility.

_So who was she?_


	2. Chapter 2

Her.

It was _her._

The girl from his dreams. The fairykind. The one he'd seen before.

This was it. _This was his moment._

What was he going to say to her? What could he _possibly_ say at this moment in time?

What does someone usually say when they actually _meet_ the person they've been dreaming about for weeks on end?

"Wow, you'll never be dim."

_…Great_. He'd just barely met her, and he'd already stuck his foot in his mouth. His inner self winced at his own awkwardness.

"I'm Bracken," he stated in an effort to make up for his earlier statement.

_Totally smooth._

"Does the Sphinx send you to _all_ the new girls?" she retorted back at him.

_What? _That caught him off guard. She already had him completely on defense. He wasn't used to this type of interaction!

Somehow he managed to sorta-kinda stumble through what _had_ to have been one of the most awkward and off-putting conversations he'd ever had in his entire life. Probably. Definitely not an exaggeration.

_Probably._

He just couldn't _win_ with her. She was a spitfire. And her light was so bright… It was _incredibly_ distracting.

The discussion ultimately wound up with him randomly blurting out that she was brilliant, which she mistook for sarcasm, so he overcorrected himself and then asked her if he should just stop talking.

Score 1 for the unicorn-man.

_Probably more like score -100 for the unicorn-man._

If Bracken had known what a facepalm was, he probably would have done it _multiple_ times throughout that particular exchange.

This meeting hadn't gone down _at all _the way he'd imagined it might. He'd have to redeem himself later.


	3. Chapter 3

A burning sensation ripped across his chest, and he crumbled to the ground in reaction to the sheer depth and intensity of the pain.

Was this how he would die?

At the hands of Gorgrog?

_No._

He _couldn't_ die yet. They hadn't achieved their goals. He had to make sure the world was protected. The demons were loose - he had an army to lead. He couldn't fail everyone now!

Bracken very shakily pushed himself up onto his knees, blood pouring from the wound on his chest. His equilibrium was off; he felt lightheaded and his limb strength was deserting him at an alarming rate.

He collapsed back onto the ground. Gorgrog rose his sword. Any moment now, Bracken would cease to exist.

He tried to roll out of the way of the oncoming hit.

_This is the end._

His mother intercepted the downward sweep of the Demon King's weapon.

_Heal my son! _He heard her voice echo inside his head as she communicated telepathically with him and likely anyone else around her who may have been able to understand her command.

Heal. He could do that. At least a little. _Where was his horn? _Ah. On the ground next to him.

He grasped it and closed his eyes as he tried to concentrate on directing some of the energy residing within his horn toward his chest to help stop the bleeding. His mother cried out. He opened his eyes, concentration broken, and watched as she barely ducked out of the way in time to avoid a strike from Gorgrog's blade.

_No!_

Suddenly, the brightest light he'd ever seen in his life shone like a literal beacon of hope overhead. It took a moment for him to realize that there was a person at the center of it, and when he figured out who that person was, his heart nearly stopped beating.

_Kendra._

He'd seen this before. This _exact_ scene. Holding a blazing sword, she descended upon Gorgrog, her face contorted into an expression of righteous determination. He'd seen this in his dreams. _He'd seen this…_

Consciousness started to leave him. An astrid landed next to Bracken, lifted him, and carried him away to relative safety. His eyes fluttered closed mid-flight. He'd lost too much blood.

_Is this really the end?_

He didn't even feel it when the astrid lowered him to the ground. Didn't recognize Seth's voice as the boy rushed toward his fallen friend and called for help. He did, however, start to feel _exponentially_ more alert as soon as the Sands of Sanctity were poured over him.

Bracken sat up and found Seth asking him if he was okay, to which the unicorn nodded his head and made sure the boy was also well. His mother arrived moments later, cradling what looked like a dried-up, mummified corpse in her arms. He was slightly puzzled by this, but another blinding flash of light - this time off in the distance instead of directly overhead - distracted him.

He watched in unfettered, open-mouthed _awe_ as Kendra utterly destroyed Gorgrog, then turned her blade toward Orogoro. The Demon King's son took hold of his father's crown, and lost his leg to Gilgarol's sword in the process.

_How the tides have turned!_

"Kendra killed the demon king!" Seth announced, whooping at his sister's accomplishment. "Can you believe it!?"

Bracken remained gripped by utter shock for a brief moment, then noticed from his vantage point that the hoard of demons was slowly trying to close in around Kendra in an effort to separate her from the rest of her team.

_Get her out of there! _Bracken commanded. Two astrids - Rostimus and Crelang - landed next to Kendra almost immediately and lifted her into the air.

He let out a breath of relief once Kendra was well on her way toward their point of retreat. Off on the horizon, he could see dragons flying toward the battle.

The plan was coming together. _They just might win this day yet._


	4. Chapter 4

_**This one contains spoilers for Dragonwatch 3. FYI! Avert your gaze if you don't want to be spoiled.**_

* * *

Bracken was beginning to think that maybe he should buy stock in prison systems, considering how much time he'd been spending in them lately. Maybe that way he'd at least wind up with a halfway decent bed and some edible food one of these times.

Trapped as he was in the realm of the Underking, Bracken spent a lot of time thinking. He thought about his past, his family, his friends.

He thought about Kendra.

She'd been left in a real bind. His conversation with her had been cut off when they were both in the middle of their own crises. He worried about whether or not she'd fared well with her dragon encounter, then shook himself out of his worry. _Of course_ she'd done well. She was Kendra Sorenson.

He, on the other hand… well, he was _here_ now.

Sigh.

Kendra had been in his dreams again. Quick, brief glimpses of her often infiltrated his unconscious thoughts. He wasn't able to make a _ton_ of sense out of what he saw, but there were distinct images which stood out in his brain, clearer than when he had been imprisoned at Living Mirage.

He saw her screaming. Running. Saw her with incredible determination and confidence glowing on her face. She cried. Stared out at a vast expanse of ocean with an unreadable expression. Shot arrows at a large company of centaurs. He even caught a quick glimpse of her speaking with someone who looked remarkably like Risenmay, which piqued his interest.

The ones he found the most intriguing were when he'd catch a glimpse of a much older Kendra Sorenson. He saw her smiling, a flower crown woven into her hair. She laughed while she was toppled backwards by a small pile of young children. Kendra bowed deeply in front of his mother, who knelt before her handmaiden in exchange. Bracken's father kissed Kendra's hand. She danced in the moonlight, wearing a white, gauzy dress.

And then there were the dreams of her coming to rescue him. Those were pretty much all the same – he'd first notice light entering the dungeon of the Underking and would look in its direction to determine where it was coming from. The light would increase until suddenly he'd see Kendra walk around the corner, shining like the sun. She'd run to him as he stared at her in disbelief.

The vision of Kendra finding him in the dark came to him often, and it always woke him up. He'd stare into the depths of the dungeon at the area where he first saw Kendra's light appear in his dream, half-expecting her to show up, and always disappointed when she didn't.

Until one day, when she actually appeared.

Bracken gaped at her.

_Shining like the sun._

"Please let this be real," he muttered as she drew close to him. He instantly recognized his mother's crown, and a sense of utter disbelief filled his entire being.

"It's me," she assured him. "I have permission to let you out."

She did more than just let him out; she returned all three of his horns to him. He'd never been in possession of all three of his horns at the same time before; he gave away his first to a human who saved his life as a child, which was before his third had grown in. The feeling of power which rushed over him as he took possession of his horns was not unfamiliar to him, but this was different than normal. Fuller, somehow.

Not only did she liberate him from the darkness – yet again – but she'd brought him an overwhelming gift. In addition to all of that, she even helped him defeat his cousin.

He stared at her as Ezabar lead them out of the dungeon. He tried to pay attention to his surroundings, too, but mostly his gaze remained transfixed on the glowing goddess at his side. She looked just the same as she had when he'd seen her last, but there was something different about her now; she carried herself with greater confidence. There was a surety to her step which he'd seen her wear on occasion in the past, but which she now fully owned. Strength and determination punctuated her movements.

She also wore his mother's crown. The implications of that were tremendous and complex. He chose to ignore them for now in favor of thinking about them later.

When they finally reached the surface, he and Kendra busied themselves by climbing into a boat which the lich assured them would take them back to Crescent Lagoon. It wasn't until they were out of sight of land that Bracken allowed himself to close his eyes and feel the sunshine on his skin and the breeze in his hair.

"Are you okay?" Kendra's voice interrupted his reverie.

He smiled as he looked at her. "I'm perfect," he answered. "You've saved me."


End file.
